


There’s A Space On Your Side Of The Bed

by carnivalinsidemyhead



Category: Take That
Genre: Cheating, Comfort, Implied Anal Sex, M/M, Mildly Dubious Content, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 11:30:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18342800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carnivalinsidemyhead/pseuds/carnivalinsidemyhead
Summary: “Seriously Doug, it’s not like we’re gonna shag. We just both need someone to cuddle, right?”





	There’s A Space On Your Side Of The Bed

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Mark (more or less) saying he fills in for Katie as Howard’s bed spooning partner when they’re on tour.

The first time they shared a bed (well, the first time since the nineties) was on the Down Under Tour. Howard was used to being on the road, to being away from Katie, but Christ, 11000 miles away was something else. He missed having her in bed with him, not for the sex- okay, partly for the sex, but mostly just for the company. He’d grown accustomed to having someone to snuggle up to at night and now he didn’t know how to manage to sleep without that. 

And then Mark had knocked on his hotel room door, wearing monogrammed silk pajamas and clutching a stuffed monkey, and asked if Howard was having as much trouble sleeping as he was.

“Yeah,” Howard sighed, motioning for Mark to come in. 

“Bed’s too damn empty, innit?” Mark nodded understandingly. 

Then he climbed into the bed and patted the spot behind him and smiled at Howard.

“Spoon me.”

Howard laughed and shook his head. 

“Come on, you’ll feel better. Pretend I’m Katie.”

Howard snorted. “No offense mate, but you ain’t *that* cute.”

Mark rolled his eyes. “Very funny. Seriously Doug, it’s not like we’re gonna shag. We just both need someone to cuddle, right?”

And Howard couldn’t argue with that. 

It felt strange at first, sharing a bed with Mark for the first time in so many years. Strange, but not unpleasantly so. For all that he tended to hog the covers and snore, Mark was an oddly soothing bedfellow and for the rest of the tour, Howard woke up every morning feeling contented and well rested with Mark draped over him and snuggled tightly against him.

Some mornings, he’d wake up and find his body responding to Mark pressed up against him so tightly. And he’d feel embarrassed but, Christ, he was only human and Mark had a hell of a nice arse, all right? 

Besides, Mark never seemed to mind; just smirked a bit and wiggled his arse against him. Bastard.

“Ya know..if ya want to...I wouldn’t mind,” Mark smiled at him suggestively early one morning toward the end of the tour. “Just sayin’.”

Howard frowned. “What about Emma, then? Thought we’d both outgrown our philandering days.”

Mark sighed. “You’re right. We have, haven’t we? All the same though…”

“All the same, we can’t.”

“No, no I suppose not,” Mark sounded wistful. They lay together in silence for a few moments and then Mark spoke again. 

“Do you...do ya ever miss it, How? Sleeping with men, I mean?”  
“Sleeping with men” was a rather euphemistic and inaccurate way to put it, since there was precious little sleeping involved and the only men he’d ever been sexually attracted to or sexually engaged with had been his band mates. And “band mates” had meant Jason. Once or twice, Gary. 

Never Robbie or Mark. He loved them and all, but he didn’t think of them that way. Sleeping with those two really had been just sleeping. 

He smiled wryly at himself, curled around Mark and so damn aroused he ached. Evidently he did think of Mark that way after all. 

And of course it took until they were both middle aged and married to other people before he did, because life was just a sick bastard that way, wasn’t it?

“Yeah,” Howard spoke quietly. “It’s funny...it’s been years since me and Jay...well, you know...but yeah. Yeah I do.” 

He looked at Mark. “What about you? You miss Rob?” 

Mark nodded. “Yeah, I do. Silly, I know, cos me and him ain’t been like that for years but sometimes, yeah, I still think of him like that.” 

He looked down at his erection and then back up at Howard and kissed him quickly and gently on the lips. 

“I’m not thinking about Rob now, though,” he whispered.

Howard gulped nervously. He leaned over and lightly ran his fingers through Mark’s tangled floppy bed head and then cupped his face in his hands, his lips just an inch from Mark’s.

“This is a terrible idea,” he whispered as his lips met Mark’s again.

“You’re right...we shouldn’t…mmmmm...oh god…” 

Howard pushed Mark down, pinning him to the mattress, and kissed him hungrily and roughly, all nipping on lips and strong hands tugging at his hair.

“Oh god, yes,” Mark moaned. His pajama top was torn off him, the buttons scattering.

He made a small noise of protest at that which soon turned into a moan as he felt Howard kissing his neck and making his way down his chest to the dolphin hovering just above his waistband. 

Howard teasingly licked and bit at that spot, making Mark arch his back and squirm.

“I remember you saying you was sensitive there,” he murmured as he pulled down Mark’s pajama bottoms. 

“Jesus Christ. So that’s where the rest of you went.” 

Mark laughed and then gasped as Howard’s tongue ran over the head of his cock.

“You’re one to talk, Mr. “Unfeasibly Large Package.”

Howard chuckled softly as he slowly took him into his mouth; lips dragging up and down against his shaft teasingly, tongue swirling and flickering against throbbing veins and licking up the drops of precome. Making Mark thrash and moan underneath him. 

Howard pulled back and drank in the sight of Mark spread out on the bed; hard and flushed and naked, his eyes darkened and his lips parted. 

“God you’re beautiful,” he murmured. “Why’d it take me so damn long to notice?”

He looked him in the eye and spoke seriously. 

“You sure ya want to do this?”

Mark nodded. “More sure than I should be, really.”

Howard frowned a bit. Did that count as consent? Was Mark hoping he’d talk him round to letting his better nature win out? Should he let his own better nature win out? 

Well, obviously, he should. But he knew he wasn’t going to.

There was an awkward pause.

“Right. Erm...have you got…”

“In my toiletry kit in the bath, yeah.” Mark rolled off the bed and ambled into the bathroom to retrieve the kit.

Howard decided it was probably for the best if he didn’t ask Mark why he had lube in his toiletry kit.

Mark handed him the bottle and crawled across the bed, slowly and deliberately, licking his lips. 

“I like it nice and slooow…” thought Howard to himself as he watched him.

And then Mark was splayed out in the center of the bed on his belly grinding into the sheets with his arse up and Howard didn’t think much after that.

Afterwards, they both agreed that it would never happen again.

Mark went back to his room and got online to FaceTime with his wife and kids. Howard did the same thing in his room.

Because they were good, faithful, family men and this was a fluke, all right?

It was just a fluke.


End file.
